Aug. 20, 1920

SIXTH MESSAGE
OF
Governor T. W. Bickett
To
The Special Session of the General Assembly of 1920.

Gentlemen of the General Assembly:-

This General Assembly at its regular session created a State Highway Commission.

By virtue of section 13 of Chapter 189 of the Public Laws of 1919, I appointed the following members of the Highway Commission:- Frank Page, Chairman, for a term of six years; John E. Cameron for a term of four years; James K. Norfleet for a term of two years; and James G. Stikeleather for a term of two years. All of these appointments are subject to the confirmation of the Senate. Allowing for the time necessarily consumed in perfecting an organization, the Commission has had about one year in which to function. During this time it has completed fifteen projects comprising 73 1/2 miles at a cost of $769,297.00. It has now under construction fifty-seven projects comprising 453 miles that will cost $7,188,909.00. It has closed contracts for nine projects comprising 69 miles that will cost $749,102.00, making the total costs of projects completed, under construction and under contract of $8,707,308.00. These projects cover eighty-eight counties in the State.

In addition to the projects above named, the Commission has approved and in process to be submitted to the Federal Government sixty-one other projects, and also has under consideration twenty others not yet approved by it. The total cost of all these projects will amount to $19,060,426. The total appropriation available from the Federal Government under any law is $6,270,690. This leaves $12,789,736 to be raised by the state and the counties for the completion of the work already mapped out by the Highway Commission. North Carolina was one of the first states to absorb every dollar in sight from the Federal Government, and is calling for more.

As I have repeatedly said, the blunder that we have made in North Carolina is not that we have failed to build good roads, but that we have been criminally negligent in keeping them up. I have a profound conviction that it would be an economic crime for North Carolina to issue bonds or to permit the county to issue bonds to build any more roads in this state until we have devised and thoroughly tested out an adequate system of maintenance.

Therefore I recommend that this General Assembly authorize the State Highway Commission to test out on a number of roads selected by the Commission the best systems of maintenance now in force in any of the States of the Union, and submit the result of their experiments to the General Assembly of 1921. I have a very definite conviction that the only system that will prove to be worth while is the one now in force in the State of New Hampshire and possibly in some other states where the roads are laid off in sections and are kept under constant patrol just like the railroads are. It is simply throwing away money to build roads of any type until we provide and enforce a system of maintenance that will insure the roads from going to pieces.

Governor.

This August 20th, 1920.